reality-traveler

[dulcewrites]

Same anon Now I really can’t stop thinking about how hilarious it would be. She studied abroad for fashion to get away from the crazy Targ family. Former Vogue model Laena uses her industry connects and Rhaena volunteers as a therapist in her free time. She wants to give back to the community. Baela and Jace insist they don’t need help she won’t even try with them, but she’s pretty sure Jace got arrested after a bar fight and Baela bailed him out. Aemond argues about what his diagnosis should be (a long list) and keeps storming out. He was intimidating the other patients and tried to take their slots so he’s banned now. He still rants to her when they see each other during holidays. She nods her head pretending to listen and take notes but she’s really drawing flowers. She gave up on professionalism. Daeron has minor problems but she doesn’t want to make him feel bad, so they spend their sessions gossiping about the family. She quits after Aegon’s first session. She tells Baela everything, there’s definitely HIPPA violations all over the place

Lmao I love this

[horizon-verizon]

Nettles is Daemon’s daughter and absolutely no one can convince me otherwise. First of all, her personality is incredibly similar to Daemon’s mother, Alyssa, which I don’t think is a coincidence. Both are anything but refined and ladylike, Alyssa is “as bawdy a wench as any barmaid in King’s Landing, as she herself was fond of boasting”, Nettles is “a filthy girl with an even filthier mouth”, both are tearaway tomboys, they are both described as not conventionally attractive, Alyssa has a broken nose and mismatched eyes while Nettles has a scarred nose and crooked teeth. And not only Alyssa, but also Baelon’s bravery, bopping Balerion on the nose, Baela and Daemon’s personalities all echo in Nettles, particularly in how she tames Sheepstealer. There are too many similarities between them for it to be random.

Second of all, if we look at Daemon’s reaction to “Rhaenyra’s” letter, there’s something a lot of people miss:

The prince greeted me politely, but as he read I saw the joy go from his eyes, and a sadness descended upon him, like a weight too heavy to be borne. When the girl asked what was in the letter, he said, ‘A queen’s words, a whore’s work.’

He was happy when he got a letter from his queen and wife, but became very sad when he read its contents, he was crushed with grief. He then blamed Mysaria for the content of the letter. This reveals several things:

1. If he lost attraction to Rhaenyra and was cheating on her, why would he be happy to get her letter ?

2. If he didn’t care about Rhaenyra, why would he be sad instead of angry ? Why did he feel no guilt or shame, or try to cover up the truth if he was cheating ?

3. If all he wanted to do was control Rhaenyra as a puppet, if he only cared about himself having power, why didn’t he fly back to King’s Landing after letting Nettles escape and come up with a way to gaslight Rhaenyra, who at this point was beginning to lose her handle on King’s Landing ? Wouldn’t he have wanted to prioritize winning the war ? Persuade Rhaenyra to name their son Aegon heir instead of Joffrey ?

4. A “weight too heavy to be borne.” That isn’t the reaction of a man who got caught cheating and regrets it, it’s the reaction of a man devastated that his queen and wife lost faith in him and made him choose between her and his daughter.

He blames Mysaria for the letter, instead of getting angry at Rhaenyra herself. Why is that ? Because he lived with Rhaenyra in an unconventional joint family for a decade and yet Rhaenyra is unable to accept Nettles and doesn’t trust him anymore. Rhaenyra and Daemon raised all of their children together. He likely expected that he’d be able to officially introduce Nettles as his daughter after the war. But those plans were dashed terribly.

Yeah, it's exhausting to point out all of the things you say abt Mysaria, Nettles, and Daemon time and time again over the past few years to people. As for Nettles being Daemon's bio daughter, I truly believe in it. At first I was like "🤨" but then "🤔" and now I've been on board for a while. It just makes sense to me, esp when you contemplate that Daemon absolutely would have been sleeping around on Rhea while a few feet/miles from the Stepstones or slept with some pirate or whatever. And yes, it adds so much to see Nettles act Baela-Daemon-like or have more...room to behave contrary to the ideal "lady" when she's had to look out for herself perhaps from very young childhood.

[nrilliree]

I’m late to the fanfic discourse party but I need to give me 2 cents lmao

Rhaenyra in canon: wanted a daughter more than anything, is a good mother and loves her children more than anything in the world. doesn’t poison her children against their own family. protects her children.

Alicent in canon: physically abusive, daughter won’t even allow physical touch. sons are psycho and rapists. turns her children against their half sister and her kids. makes her kids pain about herself. thinks she’s protecting her children against imagined threats.

tg fanfics: so this is rhaenyras daughter and rhaenyra absolutely despises her, just fucking hates her, absolutely loathes her and is a terrible mother to her but you know WHO is a good mother to her Alicent Hightower; she absolutely loves and cherishes rhaenyras daughter and is the best mum ever to her and rhaenyras daughter tells everyone about her bastard brothers.

Like BITCH if Rhaenyra had a daughter, alicent would hate her ass and she’d hate alicent too.

Like I get the purpose of fanfiction is you can do whatever you want but the level of delusion in some of them is insane.

I need someone to write a counter fanfic of all this and it’s just Baela beating this imagined daughter who hates rhaenyra and vice versa’s ass.

I think that authors of such fanfiction are simply looking for an excuse so that their Mary Sue could abandon her family for love - her ideal Aemond. If Rhaenyra was a good mother, it would make Mary Sue (Maery Sue in this case🤔?) look bad and wouldn't be such an ideal character if she betrayed her mother. But if you make Rhaenyra a mean bitch and a terrible mother who favors her bastards, then Maery Sue is justified and still perfect. The plot was saved!

A lot of fic fans have a problem with mothers and children.

Time travel? Rhaenyra immediately goes to Daemon and doesn't even think about missing her three sons with Harvin, because why, when she can have new blond children? Why miss those bastards? Alicent is the same - usually not a single thought about her children.

"Fix it Rhaencent" - Alicent abandons her children and goes to Rhaenyra to help her win the war... and she doesn't think about her children.

I don't know what it's about, maybe the children are just disturbing and we need to get rid of them.

[theforgottenmcrmy]

live reactions to house of the dragon season 2, episode 2

once again, these are just my opinions (about a fictional show and characters, no less). I will not engage with incendiary arguments (if there are any) , but I am always open to polite discussions or thoughts🖤

spoilers below the cut

still loving this new intro🖤

can you imagine how terrifying it would be to be a servant in the Red Keep post 🩸 and 🧀?

Aegon’s voice literally doesn’t even sound like Aegon👀

And just WHERE have you been, Aemond?!

“We mustn’t me shaken by this.” BROOO are you kidding me?!?! That was your great grandson?

“The gods punish us. They punish me.” Yes.

Tyland I can’t even with you lmao-

Paranoid Aegon here we go…

I will give Aegon major kudos for initially objecting to Otto’s plan to parade about his son’s body. 💚 his instincts are there at times, he has just always been coddled, misguided, and not reprimanded when he needed to be.

Why is Aegon the only one spared from this parade? They 110% could have had her refrain from going out in public, and it might have been more effective. “The queen is so distraught, she is unable to leave her chambers.” Where’s the lie? And you spare that poor girl even more torture.

Helaena never wanted this, never wanted to be queen.💔 She’s not a queen who lost a prince, she is just a mother who lost her son.

Helaena is seeing something, I just don’t know what…

Where are the damn guards in this show?!?! So six go to unstick the carriage, you telling me you only have a handful of guards escorting the queen and dowager queen out and about in public?🤔

Daemon’s side eye I cannot😭😂-

Even Rhaenyra knows Helaena is innocent🖤

Anyone else’s Max suddenly run into an error at this point?

The fact that Daemon actually thinks it’s humorous😅

Godssssss this argument is painful but good, and it’s needed, but that doesn’t mean I have to like it💔

“You struck down a child.” The audible HURT in her words-

Baela has had a handful of scenes, if even that, and I already feel like we as the audience know who her character is and what she’s about right away. And her and Rhaenyra’s relationship dynamic is so honestly wholesome.

Whatever brownie points Aegon gained earlier are lost for him not having the balls to say even a WORD to Helaena, who ALSO lost a child, who, unlike him, had to go be paraded about the public for HIS political advantage.

Seeing Rhaenyra with her younger sons makes me seriously wonder what if🥺

Feeling guilty, Ser Crispy? Good.

REALLY? This b*tch really out here preaching about purity rn?! Gtfo now.

And NOW he’s pointing fingers?! Is this guy 35, or 5?!

“He’s murdered, on YOUR watch-“ is he dying soon? He’s dying soon, right? Honestly his death can’t come soon enough and I doubt it’ll even be this season-

Otto and Cole are probably the two most irredeemable characters on this whole show. Literally, team black or team green, I think just about every other person you can make an argument for. But these two have got nothing. Name me one thing, one expression of care for another that was not ultimately self serving for either of them in the end. I’ll wait.

“And Ser Harwin Strong?” BAELA KNOWS 🚨 BAELA KNOWS, and she doesn’t give AF, we stan🖤🖤🖤

This little relationship Aemond has going on is 🚩 🚩 🚩 where are this boy’s parents at-?! … Oh, wait.

“Where he does, he wishes to be his own master.” Rhaenys and Daemon just get each other. Their dynamic is so interesting.

“A week, or forever I do not know.” She sounds so unbothered😂😂😂

Uh oh Alicent, Rhaenyra may have just found a new bff👀 and it only took 16+ years

Seasmoke is that you?!?!?! Wait, what does this mean for Laenor though?🥲

Errors are STILL being made in the wake of Viserys’s death I see…

The dog’s reaction nooo😭😭😭

“The king is my grandson, and my grandson is a fool. He’s worse than a fool, he’s murdered innocent men!” You can say allll the foul stuff about Otto you want, and you’d be right. But he is not wrong in this moment. This reaction is valid, and in my opinion sound council. The delivery could be tailored to better fit Aegon’s current headspace, but Otto’s reaction is still valid here I feel.

Crazy how Aegon went from wanting the small folk’s approval to scoffing at the need for it.

“Ser Criston Cole has acted.” BOY if you knew HOW Ser Criston Cole has been acting-

Also crazy how fast Aegon went from being pissed with Cole being “in bed” at the time of Jaehaerys’s murder to praising him and putting him in a pedestal.

“It’s time the bitch queen paid the price.” Could Larys have his guys cut out HIS tongue now?! Please??? Literally no one but Aegon, who’s grieving, paranoid, and a little off the rails rn, wants to hear a damn thing from him. Not even his dowager queen booty call wants anything from him rn.

I think Otto’s gonna give himself a heart attack.

Yooooo, Otto realizing that Aegon is going to be waaaaaaay harder to control than Viserys ever was😭😂😂😂 I love it. I need more. This is wonderful.

“He made me king.” *Otto laughs.*

“You will regret this.” THAT actually may be the truest words Otto has ever spoken to anyone, any king, in his life.

Mysaria is already proving her loyalty, we love to see it🖤

Moral of the story is everyone, the Greens and the Blacks, need better guards like😅

If anything happens to Elinda-

Oooo, we’re doing this here and now?🥲

Ser Erryk died with more honor than Criston EVER had. And that is a hill I will die on myself.

Hell, even Arryk had more honor than Criston.

DAERON?!?!?!?!??!!?? LET’S F’ING GO

Oh, you can ask for the Tyrell’s to help, but something tells me you won’t get it👀

It’s honestly tragic as hell how Alicent was a victim of her father’s plots in her youth, and continues to be one as an adult. (I am in no way saying she has not made her own choices throughout her life, but I still stand by this statement.)

THE NERVE OF THIS MAN-

THE NERVE OF THIS WOMAN-

Okay, team black, team green, team small folk, idc- can we please all agree that everyone is anti-Criston Cole?

Aemond was not in this episode nearly enough for what happened in the last one.

[bohemian-nights]

do you (personally) think show baela&rhaena even like daemon?

It’s clear that baela still feels a sense of loyalty to him given by the letter she wrote to him in ep8, but I personally think that loyalty is just bc he’s her ‘father.’ what do you think? 🤔

😬For all his faults(I know a deadbeat when I see one. Daemon is a deadbeat. No ifs ands or buts about it. Anyone who doesn’t think he’s a deadbeat probably feels that the dad has to be completely MIA to be considered one when that isn’t always the case) Baela seems to admire her dad a great deal. It’s not just that she is in constant, but you also have that deleted scene where she tells Rhaenys she wants to fight and be like her, her mother, and her father.

The fact that she’s ranking Daemon up there with her mother and her grandmother(the true father who stepped up) says a lot. I’m sure she feels some level of resentment for how he treated her mother, but With her, it definitely goes beyond plain loyalty.

Rhaena is a bit trickier because she has had all of two lines as a teenager, but it’s obvious that when she was a child she felt severely neglected by him and wished to do whatever she could to make him notice her. I doubt that anything has changed in the past six years to rectify the situation. Scratch that, nothing has changed in the past six years because of anything had Daemon would call out Rhaenyra for treating his daughter like Cinderella.

If that’s not enough for some people, I’ll let y’all in. Do you see Rhaena’s hair? Do you see how it’s been the same for years on end? Black girls do not wear our hair in the same style for years on end let alone a couple of months. You know what causes that? Depression and neglect.

You saw how she perked up when those wild dragons were mentioned. The poor girl is in desperate need of attention, love, and affection. She still wants to be noticed by him. she’ll grow out of it(when she becomes a lady of house Hightower 😏), but for now she just wants him to be her dad.

Now, to be honest, the show is probably never going to address these issues. At most we might get Daemon saying goodbye to Baela, but Daemon apologizing to Rhaena? Nope. Rhaena expressing to Daemon that she wants to be seen by him? I doubt it.

All we’ll get is what we got last season because this show would rather pretend like Daemon didn’t have any children with Laena(and I’m not getting into that, but the showrunners clearly have a bias towards certain people). I’ll eat crow if I’m wrong, but I doubt I will be.

How I don’t hate Daemon is a freaking miracle cause this man is just 🙃 He literally does not pay attention to his children. Well the girls at least, but that’s okay. According to the dummies, Daemon only loves his children by the love of his life(who he choked out) Valyrian Karen. The girls aren’t Missy Anne’s so why should he pay any attention to them 👍🏽

Which brings me to how on God’s green earth anyone can say or think that Nettles will be Daemmon’s child. Dameon doesn’t pay attention to his legitimate fully Valyrian daughters why the hell would he pay attention to Nettles? She’s definitely not Rhaenyra’s child. She’s not even fully Valyrian. Why would he be rolling out the red carpet for her🙃 Make it make sense.

[greywoe]

some thoughts on that first episode bc i might as well

- that first scene in the north did not make me very happy… maybe it’s just me who likes negotiations but i was looking forward to Jace’s World Tour of North/Eastern Westeros and his talks and bargains with the different houses (especially lady jeyne! i guess i can understand why they cut it out but i think when it comes to her there’s material to build an interesting character from, but whatever. another arryn L i guess :(), but what did we get but one (1) scene at the wall for some reason. i mean i like the night’s watch as much as the next person but this just felt like straight up GoT fanservice… like what does the threat beyond the wall have to do with this conflict? they could at least have given us some parley but there was barely anything of that either. cregan stark’s going to be important later so i thought they’d do more to establish him as a character now. but literally the next scene we see jace in he’s back at dragonstone….. ok (tho i guess they could return to the north later? idk we’ll see) (also, i care less for the sara snow subplot but i was sure they would do something with it since they love to go with the juicy stuff like forbidden love and whatnot)

- on that note i expect they’re going the singers’ route with erryk and arryk which i don’t really care for (they need to make me care more for those characters first) but it makes sense

- i’m ashamed of the fact that the alyn reveal made me go “ahh” aloud and my mum (who hasn’t read f&b) went “what???” and i just vaguely waved it off because it’s so annoying when people do that and i try not to but… i was surprised they introduced him so early

- aegon ii keeps being the most entertaining character on the show and he was the highlight to me. thank you for bringing a tinge of comedy. i’d say keep it up, but… well

- this is old discourse but i don’t have much of a problem with them showing alicent being groomed and manipulated in the show which probably makes her seem more sympathetic to viewers (and i can’t help but fall for every instance the lingering and complex feelings between her and rhaenyra that still clearly affect her come up) but now i’d like to see her being more active. i liked her confronting otto but (so far) for the most part she seemed a bit uninvolved and inactive (except for the sex scenes with criston… -_- which i guess are intended to bite them in the ass later which is why it’s continuously brought up, but so far i do not care for it). i just want to see her contributing more of her own i guess. but there’s plenty of time for that in the upcoming episodes, especially now after the death of another child 😔

- i sure hope we get to see more of baela and rhaena. this was only the first episode, i will have hope in my heart

- helaena’s line about being scared of the rats felt like clever foreshadowing when i heard it, except that the blood & cheese thing happened just a few scenes later……. suddenly it didn’t feel so clever anymore, nobody will have forgotten it at that point (the best foreshadowing imo is stuff that you maybe don’t notice at first and only catch on your rewatch)

- and about that, as relieved as i am about the violence being toned down, reading the book the whole “damning one child to die but the other one is slain, so now you and your child have to live with the fact that you named him to be killed” business was very impactful so i’m a bit disappointed nonetheless. for a show that so clearly opts for emotional impact, i mean… though i suppose cutting a kid or two out is understandable. but the way they made a whole deal about not knowing the sex of the twins (and the assassins being surprisingly gentlemanly about it lol) made me wonder if they mean to do a big plot twist where helaena was lying about it and actually rescued jaehaerys, but also that (unnecessarily) changes some things and what would be the point of that. 🤔 i did really like helaena’s acting during the scene though, opting for pure shock and dissociation rather than making it a dramatic tearfest. i like helaena as a character too, from what little we have seen of her anyway, and i wish she’d had more moments previously in the show so that we as viewers would be even more emotionally connected to her, but she gets pretty sidelined in comparison to her brothers. we don’t get to know much about her in the book so i feel like that’s what the show is for! expanding upon the book!

[fkevin073]

I LOVED it, jace dying before alys in any universe was straight in my heart 💔 (I loved the twins, but I always saw alysanne as a total mother of boys. like Aemma and aemon and the rest of boys)

Ou I love it! Tbh, I’ve always seen Alysanne as having more girls with Aemond than boys, and more boys with Jace than girls. Idk why, but that’s the vibe!

But now to rearrange Jace and Alys’ potential kids:

1. Aemon

2. Aemma (she’s the younger of the twins)

3. Rhaegar

4. I really like the idea of Alysanne naming one of her kids after Helaena. So if we’re going all boys, maybe Helios? That’s the greek version (kind of) of Helaena. But I also like the idea of Alysanne giving birth to a girl right after or right before Jace dies - a kid he never gets to meet (if he does end up dying a relatively young death) . So either Helios or Elayna.

5. Torrhen or Brandon - I like the idea of Jace and Alysanne continuing Rhaenyra’s tradition of naming one of their kids a non-Valyrian name. I know it’s because of Laenor that Joffrey was named that, but I find it funny. Maybe to honour their friendship with Cregan in the north (lmao me furthering my jace x Cregan agenda in every universe)

Now if Alysanne, jace and Aemond had ended up in a throuple like good ole Visenya, Rhaenys and Aegon, I still think she would have given birth to twins first (so many twins I know but whatever this is fantasy it runs in the family).

1. Rhaegar and Alyssa (after Rhaenyra and Alicent. I actually loathe canon Rhaegar, but this is the closet male equivalent to Rhaenyra so…). I like the idea that it’s not clear who is the father of these twins since Alysanne is *with* both of them. I think the boy looks like Jace and the girl like Aemond, or maybe the other way around 🤔 undecided.

Idk about the rest of the kids. I think if Jace could he’d try and name a kid after Harwin in some way (Haegon is actually a canon name so 👀👀) because of him, Alysanne and Aemond were technically all on the throne he’d be a lot more secure. But who knows? I think in that universe they’d definitely have a kid called Visenya or some sort of equivalent. I’m thinking 6 kids total? 3 boys, 3 girls.

As to Alysanne and Aemond’s kids (with no Jace influence), I’m going to keep those close to my chest for the moment. But I have ideas, even if they are harder to name. For Aemond and her having girls, I kind of like the idea of Alysanne being thrown out of her element a bit because she grew up only with brothers and wasn’t close to Rhaena and Baela. Alysanne post chapter 21 is a very broken person in a lot of ways so :( but tbh, I haven’t thought that far ahead for a concrete future…

[horizon-verizon]

As much as I appreciate the writers trying to show how Rhaenyra uplifts other women and girls, I DON'T like how the leaks floating around seem to suggest that they decided that the best way to put Baela at her side is to give them this "women have the only braincell and that braincell wants PEACE" dynamic coming up. That makes TWO warrior women they've decided to rewrite as conflict-averse. If they really wanted one of Daemon's daughters as her advocate, it would have made far more sense to put off Rhaena's trip to the Vale (it's not like she won't get plenty of time there regardless) and have Baela and Rhaena divided over their approaches to war with Rhaena siding with Rhaenyra and Baela siding with Daemon.

Problem is, it really feels like the show goes to weird, nonsensical lengths to distance Daemon from his daughters. Non-sensical not just because of their book counterparts. Show!Daemon is still shown to be obsessed with his family, the writers outright say that he's been "umbilically connected" to Rhaenyra, and show!Rhaenyra is also shown to be a notably involved mother. Which is why even if they did want to spin Daemon as a distant father, it doesn't make sense for Rhaenyra to not only let him get away with it, but also weirdly seem to have more of a rapport with his daughters than he does when, again, the writers themselves have called them "umbilically connected."

We're talking about the Rhaenyra who made sure her young, mourning son took the time to comfort and connect with Baela and Rhaena. So I can't buy that Daemon ignoring his daughters wouldn't be a HUGE point of contention, one we should have been shown, between him and Rhaenyra — notable daughter also ignored by her father and seemingly intent on breaking that cycle.

But I suppose the writers have also made it clear that Baela, Rhaena, and Laena are their narrative sacrificial lambs to service whatever changes they want to make without thinking the implications through. Like... narrative padding that absorbs inconsistencies.

I wonder why 🤔

@rhaenin-time

So I can't buy that Daemon ignoring his daughters wouldn't be a HUGE point of contention, one we should have been shown, between him and Rhaenyra — notable daughter also ignored by her father and seemingly intent on breaking that cycle.

---

Show!Daemon is still shown to be obsessed with his family, the writers outright say that he's been "umbilically connected" to Rhaenyra, and show!Rhaenyra is also shown to be a notably involved mother. Which is why even if they did want to spin Daemon as a distant father, it doesn't make sense for Rhaenyra to not only let him get away with it, but also weirdly seem to have more of a rapport with his daughters than he does when, again, the writers themselves have called them "umbilically connected."

*sigh*, I fear you ate too hard. Why must you continuously raise the bar and do it flawlessly?

Oh, being serious, yeah this is a great critique of the Dragonstone family dynamics show wise. I suppose the lack of faith in Rhaenyra as an influence/authority of her own domain is buoying the popular lack of catching this tidbit.